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Being an entrepreneur doesn't mean you have to go it alone. Most
successful business owners will tell you they could not have
accomplished their goals without help--from a mentor, colleague,
even mom and dad. For many, their ability to evaluate,
internalize and act on the counsel they received was instrumental
in getting their companies off the ground.

In an effort to tap some of this wisdom, we called on business
gurus to tell us the very best piece of advice they've received. From hiring to
philanthropy
and more, their responses were as varied as the companies they
run.

"Do what you love, and the rest will come."

After co-founding two businesses, reportedly turning down a $125
million acquisition offer and being named to just about every "40
under 40" list imaginable, Dennis Crowley, CEO of Foursquare,
still cites the advice his mother gave him repeatedly as a child:
to follow his heart.

This was the mantra he adhered to when he decided to get his
master's degree at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program
instead of going for an MBA. It was also behind his launch of
social
networking companies Dodgeball (which he sold to Google in
2005) and Foursquare, and his decision this past May
to launch Swarm, an app that will unbundle the
check-ins and other social media functions from Foursquare.
(Foursquare will focus on helping users discover restaurants
and other venues.)

"When I look back at my career to this point, I've spent the last
10 to 15 years following the same narrative, building things that
people want to use and want to tell their friends about," he
says, adding that he decided to spin off Swarm because, "over
time, we realized that if we were passionate about these use
cases, we needed to unbundle Foursquare into two apps."

He often thinks back to his mom's advice. "All of these
[concepts] started as me working in my apartment building on
something I thought would be cool," he says. "All are projects
that turned into products that turned into companies."

Crowley has plenty of wisdom of his own to offer. Over the past
five years, Foursquare has raised more than $140 million,
enabling him to see the funding equation
with fresh eyes.

"If someone funded your company, they funded your ideas and
vision; your job is to turn that capital into the thing that's in
your head," he explains. "There are a thousand lessons that we've
learned from Foursquare, and perhaps the most important of those
is to be clear to investors about what the company will do and
will not do, and be open about the priorities of the things that
have to get done."

After hiring hundreds of employees, Crowley also has gathered
experience on building a reliable team. He likens the recruitment
process to collecting art, arguing that leaders must
take the time to hire strategically and "curate the team to make
sure the people who are great stay, and the people who aren't as
good get the help they need to become great."

But most important is to stick to your vision. "Don't let other
people tell you that your ideas are bad," he says.

"If you throw away ideas when they exist only on a whiteboard,
you miss the point a lot of the time."

"The fastest route to revenue wins."

The way Rick Alden
sees it, coming up with ideas is never a problem for a creative
team. Instead, he says, the challenge is learning to say no to
nine great ideas to free up the resources necessary to push one
product to market immediately.

"That one product may not be your fantasy, but revenue on a
simpler product today always beats running out of money
developing a more complicated product that won't launch for
another year," he says.

The founder of several snowboard companies, Alden collected this
advice from Guy
Kawasaki 's The Art of the Start, a book he says
crystallized many of his long-held observations about how
startups work. "An entrepreneur's life is entirely dictated by
the questions How much? How fast? and At what margin?" Alden
says. "Everything else is secondary."

"It's all about the sailor."

An investor in Peter Relan 's
first incubator, YouWeb --which spawned CrowdStar, OpenFeint
and other gaming and mobile companies--once told him that no
matter how great an idea is, success in business is more about
the sailor than the boat. The way Relan sees it, this advice
has proved true time and again.

"A great entrepreneur can take a bad idea and turn it into
something incredible," says Relan, who now helms the tech
incubator 9+. "This means that while ideas are
important, it's even more critical to have the right people in
the right positions to execute them."

Sheila Johnson certainly knows a lot about teams. She is owner or
partner in three professional sports
franchises : Washington, D.C.'s Capitals, Wizards and Mystics.
She was also founding partner of the BET network and built
Salamander, a manager of luxury resorts,
from the ground up. "Your team is one of your most important
investments," she maintains, "and if you are careful about
hiring only the best people, it will pay dividends."

"Always know your next hire."

There are countless risks associated with being a small-business
owner, and one of the biggest is staffing. "Nobody is going to
love your business as much as you do, so you have to protect it,"
says Melinda Emerson, who proffers advice of her own under the
moniker SmallBizLady. She credits this wisdom to a mentor, Wanda
Alexander, who warned her that people will quit with no notice on
the worst day possible--so long as it's advantageous for them.
Emerson's advice? "Keep in touch with people you didn't hire but
you really liked; you never know when you might need to call upon
them to help you out."

In the casino industry, where fortunes change literally
overnight, reflecting on the past does little good, aside from
providing context for future decisions. MGM Resorts International founder Kirk
Kerkorian championed the "only look forward" approach to
business, and Jim Murren, who recently oversaw the $8.5
billion development of CityCenter in Las Vegas, carries the
torch. He wants the people at his company to have the capacity
to envision the long term. "Creating teams that have an
understanding of not only what they are doing but, most
important, why they are doing it, is critical," he says.

"If you wait for evidence, you'll be a follower, not a leader."

Christine Day considers herself a doer--it's what drove her to
develop Vancouver, British Columbia-based lululemon athletica
into an international juggernaut before she left to lead
healthful-lifestyle food brand Luvo in early 2014. Earlier in her career,
while heading up the Asia-Pacific division at Starbucks, she
heard CEO Howard Schultz explain why he does not rely on
market research for innovation. It changed her perspective
forever.

"There is no evidence for what has not been created yet; only
insight, purpose, passion and a willingness to move into what
could be instead of what is," she says. "Truly innovative
companies are not afraid to let go and create the next market
shift."

Just because you've been around the block doesn't mean you can't
grow as a professional. This is the gist of the advice former
Intel CEO Paul Otellini gave to Diane Bryant when she served as
chief information officer earlier in her career.

"The better you understand your customer, the higher the
probability of success," she says. "As CIO, I was tasked with
translating Intel's products and technologies into business and
productivity benefits--top-line and bottom-line results for the
corporation. Now I know firsthand what works and what doesn't."

"Stop being scared, and jump."

It took Rehan Choudhry years to get the courage to leave his
hospitality-industry job to start Life is Beautiful, a Las
Vegas-based festival that features music, food, learning and art.
This advice from a mentor provided the final push he needed.

"What makes an entrepreneur is not knowing everything about
business, but rather being passionate and fearless," Choudhry
says. "There's no 'right time' to take the leap; you can take it
at any point in your life, and should."

He says this perspective has prevented him from overthinking
every decision or opportunity that comes his way, leaving him
more focused and nimble.

"Be human."

It's easy to focus on transactions, especially when you're
struggling to start a company. But this is when it's most
important to remember that your customers are people, too. "Take
a second to recognize that there is a person on the other side of
you," says Reece Pacheco, who was given the advice early in his
career from a branding expert. "It can make all the difference in
the world." Pacheco adds that the mantra applies to every aspect
of life as an entrepreneur, from the way you treat colleagues to
the way you interact with investors.